Help:Style Guide
This is a draft, and very much a work in progress as we shape a Style Guide that represents our community of contributors. Please add your voice to the conversation in Discussions. We use a style guide to promote consistency across the wiki. This is designed to be a resource for contributors, so please take a look at the following before making edits. Don't worry; no one is going to ban you for misplacing commas, or make you feel bad for not being Shakespeare. Just be aware of the standards outlined in this guide, and give it your best shot. The Off Book wiki is a group effort, and we're so glad you're willing to contribute. When you're done looking over this guide, feel free to start editing. For more on adding content to our episode pages, check out . Other ongoing projects are listed on our To Do page (still under construction). Or, you can add content to a stub. Language Sleepy Babies live all around the world—it's part of what makes the Off Book fan community so much fun! So here are a few guidelines to help promote fruitful communication between the nations, at least on this wiki. * All pages on the wiki are in the English language. * As American English is the variant used by the hosts, producers, and most guests of the podcast, pages should use American English spelling and terminology when possible. However, in keeping with Wikia policy, other variants of English are accepted, so long as standard usage is observed. * A single page should not be written in more than one variant of English (for example, don't use "color" and "colour" on the same page). Tone This wiki is something of a cross between an archive and a tribute site. On the one hand, we want to provide accurate, useful content as a resource for everyone who visits the wiki. On the other, we want to celebrate a truly great podcast—one filled with cultural references, inside jokes, and all the other things that make Off Book so enjoyable. When editing plot summaries, character sketches, lists, etc., the goal should be clarity and accessibility, but not necessarily objectivity or complete neutrality (after all, we're not Wikipedia). Where Off Book is funny, the pages of the wiki will often reflect that humor. That said, care should be taken to keep the focus on the podcast itself, and not the cleverness of a particular editor. When identifying song names, contributors should avoid extreme interpretations in favor of the obvious title. Contributions should also be free from personal references, speculation, and diversions from the actual podcast content as much as possible. As one contributor put it, "Our jokes should be 'wikified' versions or riffs on jokes in the actual episode, so that they enhance the page instead of distracting from/competing with it." When in doubt, ask someone! Writing Style Podcast and Episode Titles This wiki is dedicated to Off Book: The Improvised Musical. Contributors should use either this name, or the shortened Off Book. The longer Off Book: The Improvised Musical Podcast with Zach and Jess is unnecessarily cumbersome. Episodes should be referred to by their whole name, if possible. When adding pages for new episodes, title the page using the official Earwolf episode name in title case. The one exception to this is live episodes, which often have long and unwieldy official titles. For simplicity, we use a standardized titling format for live episodes: Name of Musical: LIVE! For example the episode I Spy My Special Guy Live! from Clusterfest is shortened to I Spy My Special Guy: LIVE! throughout this wiki. Title Case Titles and headings (page titles, section headings, episode titles, song titles, column headings, etc.) should use title case. * Capitalize all major words except: ** Articles (a, an, the) ** Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or) ** The word to ** Prepositions with fewer than 5 letters (from, for, by, etc.) * Tip: the verb to be should always be capitalized, even in its short forms (be, is, are, was, etc.). * The first word of the title should always be capitalized. * The first word after any major punctuation (colon, parentheses, exclamation point, etc.) should also be capitalized. This comes up a lot with song titles and live episodes. Exceptions to the above tend to be limited to the following: *Unusual capitalization in brand names and other proper nouns (LiveJournal, LOST) *All-caps use of the word LIVE in live episode titles Here are several examples of title case: : All of Our Business : A Balloon in Paris : Russian into Love: LIVE! : Bring Your Dad to Work Day and the Place That You Work Is a School : "You Want a Man (Also a Boy)" : "It's Time (To Get Off the Sidelines)" : "A House and a Man" Punctuation All pages should follow a few simple punctuation conventions: * Use the Oxford comma. For any list of three or more items separated by commas, editors should include a comma before the final item in the list. : Do: This murder is gruesome, grisly, grim, and great. : Don't: This murder is gruesome, grisly, grim and great. * Double quotation marks should be used in most cases. Single quotation marks should only be used when embedding one quote within another. * Use straight quotation marks and apostrophes (as opposed to "smart" or "curly" ones). While perhaps not ideal from a typographic standpoint, this standard is both simple and easy to keep up with site-wide. Plus, it avoids having to deal with too many special characters. When editing, please check to ensure that your software isn't auto-inserting smart quotes as you type. : Do: "Wetzel's Pretzels, they're amazing," she muttered. : Don't: “Wetzel’s Pretzels, they’re amazing,” she muttered. * The title of Off Book and all other podcasts should be italicized, and use regular title case. : Do: Off Book: The Improvised Musical or Off Book : Don't: "OFF BOOK: The Improvised Musical" or "Off Book" * Individual episode titles should be italicized, and use title case. : Do: Shrugging Destiny : Don't: "Shrugging Destiny" * Song titles should be set apart by quotation marks and use title case. : Do: "James Pilot" : Don't: James Pilot Page Sections Every article should have a few sentences of text at the beginning, before the first sub-section. Usually, this sketches the details of the page, and gives a brief description of the content. Following that, the page can be divided into sub-sections like those on this page. When adding sections to an episode page, they should be arranged in this order: * Episode Description or Plot * Musical Cast * Talkback * Songs * Episode-specific sections * As We Say Every Week... * Trivia * Gallery * References Links Please do not create more than one hyperlink to the same location on a page. For example, the first time a guest's name appears, it is appropriate to link to their website. However, subsequent instances of their name on the same page should not be linked to that same site. * Infoboxes are an exception. An infobox may contain links that also exist in the main text of an article. Other Notes For the convenience of future contributors, please try to keep your source wikitext tidy. In cases where it won't alter the final appearance of the text, use spaces as follows: Do: Header * Unnumbered list # Numbered list Don't: Header *Unnumbered list #Numbered list Category: Style Guide